Return to Modesty

I so appreciated David Brook's most recent column that astutely pointed out how a return to civility can only come through a return to modesty. Modesty is unpopular. It's not flashy or quick or attention-getting--the seeming virtues of the day. However, I completely agree that modesty could very well be a step in the right direction for ourselves personally, as communities, and as a nation.

I thought about the people I know who are fine examples of modesty and a few faces immediately came to mind. I so admire them.

I think women, in particular, could use a dose of modesty. The notion that women should be humble, meek and mild has long since been thought out-dated. Women are supposed to be strong, resolute, determined, courageous, and educated, they say. And yes. Undeniably yes. Women are to be all of these things. But they are also to be tempered by modesty, softened by gentility,  and sweetened by civility. My own mother is this way and I respect her so much for that. She is an example to me of simultaneous strength and soft-heartedness, tenacity and tenderness, fierceness and faith, power and purity.

Oh that we were all more like our mothers! I think of my female fore bearers with increasing frequency these days as I prepare to join their ranks as a mother. I am grateful that I have so many to look to as examples of might and modesty.